


Sorries and Stars

by RittaPokie



Category: Critical Role, Mighty Nien - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mostly Fluff, Oneshot, angsty, but like just a smidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 10:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18809080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RittaPokie/pseuds/RittaPokie
Summary: Spoilers for??? I think c2 e56 But it might be e55. I can’t remember which I was watching before I got struck with this in bed while I was trying to sleep.





	Sorries and Stars

He thinks that maybe he should be more surprised that he keeps fucking up. After all, he tries so hard to be so careful. That, that, he should be resistant to, immune to. He was made- no, not made, not forced -persuaded, coerced, cajoled- again. To do it again. More people this time, they could’ve died, all of them. For fuck’s sake, get it together- get better, be better- be-

“Beau.” He sits at the table next to her, not looking at her. She doesn’t really look at him either, but he doesn’t take it as a snub, that’s just Beau. If anything, it’s a sign of trust. She’s watching the room, not him.

“‘Sup?” She says, her gaze slowly making its way across the room, everyone getting summed up in neat, one-to-two line descriptions.

“Do you have a moment for a private conversation?” He asks, and she finally looks to him.

“Yeah, sure, but…” she looks around, “This is probably about as private as it gets, with how we look. We shouldn’t be seen leaving together at this point.”

“Fair.” He says. He shifts his chair closer to her. “What you said before, when you tried to stop me.”

“You heard that?”

“Yes.” He says. “You asked if the day you dreaded had finally come. Do you… expect to have to kill me someday?”

She looks away again, not to avoid eye contact (at least, that’s what he assumes), to resume her watch of the room. “There’s an expression that goes like ‘when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time’. You keep saying you’re just using us.”

“Yeah.” He says quietly.

“I don’t believe that’s all you’re doing, and I don’t believe you’re as bad as you think you are, but… I’m keeping what you said on a shelf.” She says.

“Hopefully, it only ever gathers dust.”

She looks at him again, a kind of squinted face, uncomfortable with the kinship she’s trying not to feel too deeply. “Yeah, me too.”

“I’m sorry.” He says. “For… trying to kill you. You are all hardy people, had you not been…”

“We are.” She says, and she nods. “Next time, I’ll just punch you in the face. I was trying to do what Fjord and I talked about - talk before you start fighting - but it doesn’t work out very often.”

Despite himself, he feels a bit of a smile tug at his face. He pushes it back. The two of them are very similar in some ways. The skill of burying emotions is one of them. He moves on, seeking out Jester next. She was the one he hurt the most. If not for Fjord dousing the flames, he might have killed her. He almost killed Nugget. If not for Caduceus, he would have.

He pushes the stable-like door open. She’s laying, stomach down, sketching with Nott next to her. He can’t tell if she’s drawing Nott, or if he just interrupted their conversation.

“Eh… Could I have a moment alone with Jester?” Nott nods and Jester looks over her shoulder.

“Sure,” Nott says, “I’ll find Beau or someone.”

He waits patiently and quietly until Nott exits, and then sits, cross-legged, next to Jester. “I’m… really sorry.”

Her brows knit for a moment. “Caleb, it’s not your fault, you know? You were charmed by those demons. You know how charming spells work, you’ve got a few of them.”

He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have fallen under it. I should’ve been able to resist it, or at least resist setting you all ablaze.”

She shrugs. “Not even Nugget is mad at you, but if you need me to say it - I forgive you.” She says. “It wasn’t your fault, but I forgive you.”

The guilt of this happening again is swelling like the storms they saw on the seas, pooling in his throat and trying to choke him…but he hasn’t told her, and he should never tell her or anyone else if he can get away with it. He sits, his hands picking at the cloth on his knees for a moment.

Jester shifts to her side and pushes up, her legs folded to the side under her, propped on one arm. “I’m okay, Caleb.”

“No thanks to me, though.” He breathes, and he sounds hoarse, even to himself.

Looking down at the floor, he sees her move, but he doesn’t see enough to anticipate or prepare for the sudden, soft touch of her lips on his. It only lasts for the briefest of seconds, and he stands immediately and leaves, the door rattling in its frame as he exits.

Out. Out. Out of here. That’s all he knows, nothing else. He only needs to escape - but not the front door, the back, the alley. Somewhere alone, somewhere safe. Not from her - from… everything. He has read about some people blacking out in times of high stress, like this - not him, no, not him. He’s far too unlucky for that. No, he has to remember everything. The high-pitched whine in his ears laced with the pounding, battering of his heart in his rib cage. A beast trying to tear out of his chest, trying to run further than he is willing to take it. It will have to settle for the alley. He puts his back to the wall, and slides down.

———

Nott sees her boy stiffly walk out of the back after clattering out of the room. “Caleb?” She calls, but he doesn’t answer or even look in her direction. She squints at Beau. “I’ll get him. Go ask Jester what happened.”

She moves carelessly here. She’s been so, so careful and silent and safe in other places, but she… belongs here, in this form. Perhaps more than she belonged in Felderwind in her original body, but she doesn’t like to think about that, nor does she have time to.

She opens the back door, looks left and right, shuts it. Caleb is seated behind, where the open door blocks the view of him. He is seated on the ground, sad, scared, and wrecked - very much like she found him originally. “Caleb?”

“Mm?” He acknowledges her this time, at least. His hand is over his mouth, and his eyes are thousands of miles and years away.

“What happened? Are you okay?” She asks. She can’t imagine that Jester said or did anything to provoke this - the tattooing thing is… questionable, but Jester has never been cruel.

“Mm.” He makes eye contact, finally. She can see him beginning to settle down. She sits next to him.

“Jester will forgive you.” She says, because that’s the only assumption she can make.

“She did.”

Nott’s brow furrows. “Then what… what are you upset about?”

He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. “Nothing, it’s silly.” He says. “An overreaction.”

“To?” She asks.

His face twitches just slightly. She can’t tell what expression tries to form. A smile, a grimace, pain. “Nothing.”

“Okay.”

———

“Jester, what the fuck?” Beau says from the doorway.

“I don’t know! I didn’t think he’d freak out that bad, maybe a little bit, but not super a lot like that.” She says, her arms going up and her expression exaggerated concern. “I mean, all I did was kiss him, and like… not even a lot, just a little-“ she makes a quick peck to the air. “Like that.”

The smile from earlier catches up with Beau, but now it’s kind of at Caleb’s expense. “You kissed him?”

“Yah.”

Beau sits next to Jester on the floor. “Why, though?”

“I don’t know, he just looked so, so sad and it was stupid for him to be, so I wanted to distract him.” She says. “I thought it would be a ‘haha you’re so silly Jester’, but it wasn’t.”

“He’ll be okay. Nott’s got him.”

———

It isn’t a secret that Caleb can keep for very long, especially not in such a tightly knit group, but it’s okay. He finds that he was overreacting, and he feels a bit guilty about it. This guilt is better than what it replaced, though, so he leaves it be. Later in the evening, when they find their rest, Nott lets go of questions that had built and brimmed up in her all afternoon.

“Jester.” She whispers, and pokes the tiefling in the side to wake her.

Jester turns, already awake, and frowns. “Ow, Nott, you didn’t even give me a chance to say I was awake.”

“Sorry, I’m just… what happened, earlier? I thought you like Fjord? What happened to dark and mysterious? The bad boy?”

Jester lays flat on her back, her hands crossed on her stomach. “Weeellllll… I mean, it was mostly a joke.”

“Only mostly?” She perks up more.

Nott can see Jester’s grin in the night - Cheshire Cat-like. “I don’t know. Fjord is dark and mysterious, but he doesn’t really seem interested, and- Well, Caleb has always been very nice to me. He’s shy and quiet, but those aren’t bad things, you know?” She looks over at Nott and then back at the ceiling. “Besides, it’s not like Caleb doesn’t have his dark and mysterious side. But he was so worried and upset that he hurt me, and it wasn’t even his fault, and he just looked so sad and-“

There’s a bang on the adjacent wall as someone shouts “shut up” in a gruff voice.

“I’m sorry!” Jester shouts, and then hushes her voice to a whisper. “We’ve seen him come out of his shell a few times, and I think he’s probably really fun when that happens.”

“Do you like him?” Nott asks.

Jester flushes in the dim light. “I dunno… he is kinda cute too. And light as Sprinkle, really.”

“He needs to eat more.” Nott says. “Well, I’m very biased because Caleb is powerful and so smart and talented-“

“Except with accents. He’s really bad at those.” Jester says.

“Everyone has a weakness.” Nott says. “He’s brave and smart, and thoughtful. And Fjord is- he’s a bastard man, like I said.”

Jester giggles. “He’s not so bad.”

“I’m kidding, he’s alright.” Nott says. “But he’s not as brave or smart as Caleb. He’s…. my sixth or seventh favorite.”

“Nott, there’s only seven of us!”

“He kept me on the open water for three months.” Nott says, and Jester giggles again. “But he’s okay. He got us back all in one piece.”

———

A week passes, and they move on from the city of beasts. The events there still hang in some minds, particularly in Caleb’s. Out on the open fields, wind howling past them, blowing dried out weeds along the ground, they begin to set up camp as the sun slowly goes to rest for the evening.

“Jester?” Caleb says as the group is getting things ready to camp. “A moment, please?”

“Sure.” She sits Nugget down and manages to get him to stay behind. She and Caleb walk out of earshot of the party, but stay mostly in sight.

“I uhm.” He looks up to the sky. “How much do you know of the stars?”

She follows his gaze upward. “I know they’re very pretty.”

“Well, you see that, there.” He points, and she follows his guidance. “There are seven there, in an arch, a doorway. It’s sort of like-“

“The traveler.” She finishes for him. “That’s really cool, he’s in the sky.”

“Do you have your book? Your sketching one.”

“Oh, yah.” She pulls it from her pack, along with a pen and ink. “Are you going to draw for me, Caleb?” She gasps. “I didn’t know you could draw.”

He chuckles a bit nervously. “I can’t, not really.” He holds the book, fumbling for a moment before she turns and taps her back to use as a rest for it. He marks the stars in the constellation and then crudely draws the doorway that is generally used over it.

“Are there any dicks in the sky?” She asks.

He huffs, “Not that I know of, at least none that are interpreted that way. The whole of the cosmos isn’t mapped yet, though. There are an uncountable number of stars.”

“Woah.”

“But no dicks. There is, ah, though…” He marks another down and scribbles a drawing over it, then moves the book for her to see.

She lets out a soft squeal. “Oh, it’s a unicorn! Caleb!”

“You could probably do a better rendition of it, but… to get the idea over.”

She grins, looking up at him. “Your drawings are really shit, but they’re perfect.”

“Thank… you?” The compliment is mixed, and he wouldn’t be sure how to take it even if it wasn’t.

“This is really nice, Caleb, thank you.” She looks down at the drawings again. “What else is there? You can draw some more if you want.” She tilts the book back to him and turns to be the table again.

He draws a few more. A little dog, and a big dog - Nugget now and in the foreseeable future, which make her giggle and shakes the book. It’s not like his drawings could get much worse, anyway. A sea monster, a dragon - the best ones, only the best ones. Finally, he writes at the bottom of the page, “Never forget your worth” and signs his name. He hands the book back to her, and he waits.

His heart picks up and starts to pound against his chest, an urge to run away again. She looks over the drawings slowly, taking in their terrible glory, smiling, and finally comes to rest at the bottom of the page. Her smile falters for a second, and then widens.

“Aw, Caleb, that’s so-“

He brushes his fingers delicately under her chin, leans in, and makes up what he fucked up before. He knows the romance novels she has read recently - after all, he gave them to her. It lasts longer than the last, is firmer, but just barely. He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear as he pulls away.

Her face is lit up in the moonlight, flushed as much as he’s ever seen. She tilts her head to one side, “Caleb-“

“I am… still not looking for a relationship in that way, but what happened before wasn’t fair to you.”

“It’s okay, Caleb. I know, I mean, it’s okay if you’re still in love with that girl from your past. I just didn’t want to see you so sad about something that you didn’t really do.”

He looks down and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re kind, and you’re a good person… that, before wasn’t - it wasn’t even worth the memory, but it happened. I wanted to make it better, if I couldn’t make it right, because you deserve better than- than kissing a dirty wizard in a stable and having him run away like a coward. You’re worth more than that.”

He doesn’t wait for her to respond, because he can’t. He can’t stand more. He walks away, and back to the group. He doesn’t talk to them, though he knows they all saw. He just starts casting Leomond’s Tiny Hut around them without a word while every one of them stares at him.


End file.
